Chapter 47

The prohibition of those commodities which are instrumental to vice, is not only dictated by policy but nature; nor does it, indeed, require much sagacity, when the evil is known, to find the proper remedy; for even the Indians, who have not yet reduced the art of government to a science, nor learned to make long harangues upon the different interests of foreign powers, the necessity of raising supplies or the importance and extent of manufactures, have yet been able to discover, that distilled spirits are pernicious to society, and that the use of them can only be hindered by prohibiting the sale.

For this reason, my lords, they have petitioned, that none of this delicious poison should be imported from. Britain; they have desired us to confine this fountain of wickedness and misery to stream in our own country, without pouring upon them those inundations of debauchery, by which we are ourselves overflowed.

When we may be sent with justice to learn from the rude and ignorant Indians the first elements of civil wisdom, we have surely not much right to boast of our foresight and knowledge; we must surely confess, that we have hitherto valued ourselves upon our arts with very little reason, since we have not learned how to preserve either wealth or virtue, either peace or commerce.

The maxims of our politicians, my lords, differ widely from those of the Indian savages, as they are the effects of longer consideration, and reasonings formed upon more extensive views. What Indian, my lords, would have contrived to hinder his countrymen from drunkenness, by placing that liquor in their houses which tempted them to excess; or would have discovered, that prohibition only were the cause of boundless excesses; that to subdue the appetite nothing was necessary but to solicit it; and that what was always offered would never be received? The Indians, in the simplicity of men unacquainted with European and British refinements, imagined, that to put an end to the use of any thing, it was only necessary to take it away; and conceived, that they could not promote sobriety more effectually, than by allowing the people nothing with which they could be drunk.

But if our politicians should send missionaries to teach them the art of government, they would quickly be shown, that if they would accomplish their design, they must appoint every tenth man among them to distribute spirits to the nine, and to drink them himself in what quantity they shall desire, and that then the peace of their country will be no longer disturbed by the quarrels of debauchery.

It is, indeed, not without amazement, that I hear this bill seriously defended as a scheme for suppressing drunkenness, and find some lords, who admit that fifty thousand houses will be opened for the publick sale of spirits, assert that a less quantity of spirits will be sold.

The foundation of this opinion is in itself very uncertain; for nothing more is urged, but that all who sell under the sanction of a license, will be ready to inform against those by whom no license has been purchased; and that, therefore, fifty thousand licensed retailers may hurt a greater number who now sell spirits in opposition to the law.

All this, my lords, is very far from certainty; for it cannot be proved, that there are now so great a number of retailers as this act may produce: it is likely that security will encourage many to engage in this trade, who are at present deterred from it by danger. It is possible, that those who purchase licenses may nevertheless forbear to prosecute those that sell spirits without the protection of the law. They may forbear, my lords, from the common principles of humanity, because they think those poor traders deserve rather pity than punishment; they may forbear from a principle that operates more frequently, and too often more strongly; a regard to their own interest. They may themselves offend the law by some other parts of their conduct, and may be unwilling to provoke an inspection into their own actions, by betraying officiously the faults of their neighbours; or they may be influenced by immediate terrours, and expect to be hunted to death by the rage of the populace.

All these considerations may be urged against the only supposition that has been made, with any show of reason, in favour of the bill; and of these various circumstances, some one or other will almost always be found. Every man will have either fear or pity, because almost every good man is inclined to compassion, and every wicked man is in danger from the law; and I do not see any reason for imagining that the people will tolerate informers more willingly now than in the late years.

But suppose it should be granted, though it cannot be certain, and has not yet been shown to be probable, that the clandestine trade will be interrupted; I am not able to follow these ministerial reasoners immediately to the consequence which they draw from this concession, and which must be drawn from it, if it be of any use in the decision of the question, nor can see that the consumption of spirituous liquors will be made less.

Let us examine, my lords, the premises and the consequences together, without suffering our attention to be led astray by useless digressions. Spirits will be now sold only with license! therefore less will be sold than when it was sold only by stealth!

Surely, my lords, such arguments will not much influence this assembly. Why, my lords, should less be bought now than formerly? It is not denied, that there will be in every place a licensed shop, where drunkards may riot in security; and what can be more inviting to wretches who place in drunkenness their utmost felicity I If you should favourably suppose no more to be sold, yet why should those who now buy any supposed quantity, buy less when the restraint is taken away?

If it be urged, that the present law does in reality impose no restraint, the intended act will make no alteration. There is no real prohibition now, there will be no nominal prohibition hereafter; and, therefore, the law will only produce what its advocates expect from it, a yearly addition to the revenue of the government. But, my lords, let us at last inquire to what it is to be imputed, that the present law swells the statute book to no purpose? and why this pernicious trade is carried on with confidence and security, in opposition to the law? It will not surely be confessed, that the government has wanted authority to execute its own laws; that the legislature has been awed by the populace, by the dregs of the populace, the drunkards and the beggars! Yet when the provisions made for the execution of a law so salutary, so just, and so necessary, were found defective, why were not others substituted of greater efficacy? Why, when one informer was torn in pieces, were there not new securities proposed to protect those who should by the same offence displease the people afterwards?

The law, my lords, has failed of a great part of its effect; but it has failed by cowardice on one part, and negligence on another; and though the duty, as it was laid, was in itself somewhat invidious, it would, however, have been enforced, could the revenue have gained as much by the punishment as was gained by the toleration of debauchery. It has, however, some effect; it may be imagined, that no man can be trusted where he is not known, and that some men are known too well to be trusted; and, therefore, many must be occasionally hindered from drinking spirits, while the law remains in its present state; who, when houses are set open by license, will never want an opportunity of complying with their appetites, but may at any time enter confidently, and call for poison, and mingle with numerous assemblies met only to provoke each other to intemperance by a kind of brutal emulation and obstreperous merriment.

This bill, therefore, my lords, is, as it has been termed, only an experiment; an experiment, my lords, of a very daring kind, which none would hazard but empirical politicians. It is an experiment to discover how far the vices of the populace may be made useful to the government, what taxes may be raised upon poison, and how much the court may be enriched by the destruction of the subjects.

The tendency of this bill is so evident, that those who appeared as its advocates have rather endeavoured to defeat their opponents by charging their proposals with absurdity, than by extenuating the ill consequence of their own scheme.

Their principal charge is, that those who oppose the bill recommend a total prohibition of all spirits. This assertion gives them an opportunity of abandoning their own cause, to expatiate upon the innocent uses of spirits, of their efficacy in medicine, and their convenience in domestick business, and to advance a multitude of positions which they know will not be denied, but which may be at once made useless to them, by assuring them, that no man desires to destroy the distillery for the pleasure of destroying it, or intends any thing more than some provisions which may hinder distilled spirits from being drunk by common people upon common occasions.

Having thus obviated the only answer that has hitherto been made to the strong arguments which have been offered against the bill, I must declare, that I have heard nothing else that deserves an answer, or that can possibly make any impression in favour of the bill; a bill, my lords, teeming with sedition and idleness, diseases and robberies; a bill that will enfeeble the body, corrupt the mind, and turn the cities of this populous kingdom into prisons for villains, or hospitals for cripples; and which I think it, therefore, our duty to reject.

Lord LONSDALE next spoke to the effect following:--My lords, the bill, on which we are now finally to determine, is of such a tendency, that it cannot be made a law, without an open and avowed disregard of all the rules which it has been hitherto thought the general interest of human nature to preserve inviolable. It is opposite at once to the precepts of the wise, and the practice of the good, to the original principles of virtue and the established maxims of policy.

I shall, however, only consider it with relation to policy, because the other considerations will naturally coincide; for policy is only the connexion of prudence with goodness, and directs only what virtue each particular occurrence requires to be immediately practised.

The first principle of policy, my lords, teaches us, that the power and greatness of a state arises from the number of its people; uninhabited dominions are an empty show, and serve only to encumber the nation to which they belong; they are a kind of pompous ornaments, which must be thrown away in time of danger, and equally unfit for resistance and retreat.

In the present war, my lords, if the number of our people were equal to that of the two nations against which we are engaged, the narrowness of our dominions would give us a resistless superiority; as we have fewer posts to defend, we might send more forces to attack our enemies, who must be weak in every part, because they must be dispersed to a very great extent. The torrent of war, as a flood of water, is only violent while it is confined, but loses its force as it is more diffused.

In consequence of this maxim, my lords, it is proposed, that because we are at war against two mighty powers, we shall endeavour to destroy by spirits at home, those who cannot fall by the sword of the enemy, and that we endeavour to hinder the production of another generation; for it is well known, my lords, and has in this debate been universally allowed, that the present practice of drinking spirits will not only destroy the present race, but debilitate the next.

This surely, my lords, is a time at which we ought very studiously to watch over the preservation of those lives which we are not compelled to expose, and endeavour to retrieve the losses of war by encouraging industry, temperance, and sobriety.

Another principle of government which the wisdom of our progenitors established, was to suppress vice with the utmost diligence; for as vice must always produce misery to those whom it infects, and danger to those who are considered as its enemies, it is contrary to the end of government; and the government which encourages vice is necessarily labouring for its own destruction; for the good will not support it, because they are not benefited by it, and the wicked will betray it, because they are wicked.

How little then, my lords, do our sagacious politicians understand their own interest by promoting drunkenness and luxury, of which the natural train of consequences are idleness, necessity, wickedness, desperation, sedition, and anarchy! How little do they understand what it is that gives stability to the fabrick of our constitution, if they imagine it can long stand, when it is not supported by virtue.

In consequence of these maxims, another may be advanced, that all trades which tend to impair either the health or virtue of the people, should be interdicted; for since the strength of the community consists in the number and happiness of the people, no trade deserves to be cultivated which does not contribute to the one or the other; for the end of trade, as of all other human attempts, is the attainment of happiness.

If any trade that conduces not to the happiness of the community by increasing either the number or the virtue of the people, be industriously cultivated, the legislature ought to suppress it; if any manufacture that administers temptations to wickedness be flourishing and extensive, it has already been too long indulged; and the government can atone for its remissness only by rigorous inhibition, severe prosecutions, and vigilant inquiries.

That the trade of distilling, my lords, had advanced so fast among us, that our manufacturers of poison are arrived at the utmost degree of skill in their profession, and that the draughts which they prepare are greedily swallowed by those who rarely look beyond the present moment, or inquire what price must be paid for the present gratification; that the people have been so long accustomed to daily stupefaction, that they are become mutinous, if they are restrained from it; and that the law which was intended to suppress their luxury cannot, without tumults and bloodshed, be put in execution, are, in my opinion, very affecting considerations, but they can surely be of no use for the defence of this bill.

The more extensive the trade of distilling, the more must swallow the poison which it affords; the more palatable the liquor is made, the more dangerous is the temptation; and the more corrupt the people are become, the more urgent is the necessity of extirpating those that have corrupted them.

I am not, my lords, less convinced of the importance of trade, than those lords who have spoken in the most pathetick language for the continuance of the manufacture; but my regard for trade naturally determines me to vote against a bill by which idleness, the pest of commerce, must be encouraged, and those hands, by which our trade is to be carried on, must be first enfeebled, and soon afterwards destroyed.

Nor is this kind of debauchery, my lords, less destructive to the interest of those whose riches consist in lands, than of those who are engaged in commerce; for it undoubtedly hinders the consumption of almost every thing that land can produce; of that corn which should be made into bread, and brewed into more wholesome drink; of that flesh which is fed for the market, and even of that wool which should be worked into cloth. It has been often mentioned ludicrously, but with too much truth, that strong liquors are to the meaner people, meat, drink, and clothes; that they depend upon them alone for sustenance and warmth, and that they desire to forget their wants in drunkenness rather than supply them. If we, therefore, examine this question with regard to trade, we shall find, that the money which is spent in drunkenness for the advantage only of one distiller, would support, if otherwise expended, a great number of labourers, husbandmen, and traders; since one man employed at the still may supply with the means of debauchery such numbers as could not be furnished with innocent victuals and warm clothes, but by the industry of many hands, and the concurrence of many trades.

Numbers, my lords, are necessary to success in commerce as in war; if the manufacturers be few, labour will be dear, and the value of the commodity must always be proportioned to the price of labour.

These, my lords, are the arguments by which I have hitherto been incited to oppose this bill, which I have not found that any of its defenders can elude or repel; for they content themselves with a cowardly concession to the multitude, allow them to proceed in wickedness, confess they have found themselves unable to oppose their sovereign pleasure, or to withhold them from pursuing their own inclinations; and, therefore, have sagaciously contrived a scheme, by which they hope to gain some advantage from the vices which they cannot reform.

But who, my lords, can, without horrour and indignation, hear those who are entrusted with the care of the publick, contriving to take advantage of the ruin of their country?

Let others, my lords, vote as their consciences will direct them, I shall likewise follow the dictates of my heart, and shall avoid any concurrence with a scheme, which, though it may for a time benefit the government, must destroy the strength and virtue of the people, and at once impair our trade and depopulate our country.

Lord CARTERET then rose up, and spoke in substance as follows:--My lords, the warmth with which this debate has been hitherto carried on, and with which the progress of this bill has been opposed, is, in my opinion, to be imputed to strong prejudices, formed when the question was first proposed; by which the noble lords have been incited to warm declamations and violent invectives; who, having once heated their minds with suspicions, have not been able to consider the propositions before them with calmness and impartiality; but have pursued their first notions, and have employed their eloquence in displaying the absurdity of positions never advanced, and the mischief of consequences which will never be produced.

It is first to be considered, my lords, that this bill is intended, not to promote, but to hinder, the consumption of spirituous liquors; it is, therefore, by no means necessary to expatiate upon that which is presupposed in the bill, the pernicious quality of spirits, the detestable nature of drunkenness, the wickedness or miseries which are produced by it. Almost all that has been urged by the noble lords who have spoken with the greatest warmth against the bill, may reasonably be conceived to have been advanced for it by those who projected it; of whom it may be justly imagined, that they were fully convinced how much spirits were abused by the common people, and how much that abuse contributed to the wickedness which at present prevails amongst us, since they thought it necessary to prevent them by a new law.

But, my lords, when they saw that the abuse of distilled liquors was in a very high degree detrimental to the publick, they saw, likewise, that the trade of distilling was of great use; that it employed great numbers of our people, and consumed a great part of the produce of our lands; and that, therefore, it could not be suppressed, without injuring the publick, by reducing many families to sudden poverty, and by depriving the farmers of a market for a great part of their corn. In the plains of the western part of this island, the grain that is chiefly cultivated is barley, and that barley is chiefly consumed by the distillers; nor, if they should be at once suppressed, could the husbandman readily sell the produce of his labour and his grounds, or the landlord receive rent for his estate; since it would then produce nothing, or what is in effect the same, nothing that could be sold.

It is, indeed, possible, my lords, that the Dutch might buy it; but then it must be considered, that we must pay them money for the favour, since we allow a premium upon exportation, and that we shall buy it back again in spirits, and, consequently, pay them for manufacturing our own product. For it is not to be imagined, that any law will immediately reclaim the dispositions, or reform the appetites of the people. They are well known to have drank spirits before they were made in our country, and to indulge themselves at present in many kinds of luxury which are yet loaded with a very high tax. It is not, therefore, probable, that upon the imposition of a high duty they will immediately desist from drinking spirits; they will, indeed, as now, drink those which can be most easily procured; and if, by a high tax suddenly imposed, foreign spirits be made cheaper than our own, foreign spirits will only be used, our distillery will be destroyed, and our people will yet not be reformed.

That heavy taxes will not deter the people from any favourite enjoyment, has been already shown by the unsuccessfulness of the last attempt to restrain them from the use of spirits, and may be every day discovered from the use of tobacco, which is universally taken by the common people, though a very high duty is laid upon it, and though a king thought it so pernicious that he employed his pen against it. The commons, therefore, prudently forbore to use violent measures, which might disgust the people, but which they had no reason to believe sufficient to reform them, and thought it more expedient to proceed by more gentle methods, which might operate by imperceptible degrees, and which might be made more forcible and compulsive, if they should be found ineffectual.

Another evil will by this method, likewise, be avoided, which is the certain consequence of high duties; this tax will produce no clandestine frauds nor rebellious defiance of the legislature; the distillers will not be tempted to evade this impost by perjuries, too often practised where the profit of them is great, nor smugglers to assemble in numerous troops with arms in their hands, and carry imported liquors through the country by force, in opposition to the officers of the customs, and the laws of the nation. That this, likewise, is practised upon other occasions to escape heavy taxes, all the weekly papers inform us; nor are there many months in which some of the king's officers are not maimed or murdered doing of their duty.

All these evils, my lords, and a thousand others, will be avoided by an easy tax; in favour of which I cannot but wonder, that it should be necessary to plead so long, since every nation, which has any pretension to civility or a regular government, will agree, that heavy imposts are not to be wantonly inflicted, and that severity is never to be practised till lenity has failed.

It, therefore, appears to me, my lords, that justice, reason, and experience, unite in favour of this bill; and that nothing is to be feared from it, but that it will not be sufficiently coercive, nor restrain the abuse of spirits so much as is hoped by those that have stood up in its vindication. That it can encourage drunkenness, or increase the consumption of distilled liquors, is surely impossible; for they are now drunk without restraint; and therefore no restraint will be taken away: and since their price must be increased by a double duty, it may reasonably be conceived, that those who now spend all that they can gain by their labour in drunkenness, must be content with less than before, because they will have no more to spend; and what has hitherto enabled them to riot in debauchery will no longer be sufficient for the same purposes; the same excess will require more money, and more money cannot be had.